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Reuters – Peter Maxwell Davies, Master of the Queen’s Music, has suggested that owners of mobile phones which ring during concerts should pay a fine. Speaking to the BBC, he described the problem as becoming so common that it was “a plague.” “I would just love to see something where people would be fined … and that the money went to the Musicians’ Benevolent Fund,” he told the BBC. Davies said he was “really upset” when two concerts he attended recently were interrupted by phones ringing.

It started with one “simple” expression (pardon the pun), s/he is one sandwich short of a picnic, also known as one banana short of a bunch and other derivatives. At the Omniglot site you can find a whole page devoted to more expressions of this type in English and a variety of other languages.

What you find is that most languages have an expression to do with “missing” a screw or similar or that this object is loose. For example, in Croatian and Serbian you lack a plank, in Dutch, you don’t have all your 5 senses in a row and in German, you’re missing some cups in the cupboard. Only in Czech do you have something extra, an extra wheel – curiously, for the Italians, this is what you lack …

Another widespread idea is that of the attic or roof, for example having birds (Latvian), monkeys (Portuguese), rats (Danish) or even brownies (Swedish – no joke) in the attic or the roof being full of holes or just plain missing.

After that, there are the absolutely bizarre, probably-missing-something-in-translation, type of phrases. Our favourites follow …

Croatian brings us the painful Vrane su mu popile mozak – Crows have drunk his brain, while a personal merit award goes to Czech for the bizarre Šplouchá mu na maják – It’s splashing on his lighthouse! I think we can all relate to that one …

Strange Random Stupidity Quote:

“The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.” – Harlan Ellison

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